Toaff's Way by Cynthia Voigt

Author:Cynthia Voigt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2018-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

Then a dog yarked—a loud, sharp sound—and Sadie burst from the shadows. “Who yarkyark? What yarkyark doing?” she demanded in fierce growling yarks.

Toaff had never before heard Sadie sound dangerous.

With a chittering of nails on wood, Angus joined her in her yarking. “Get! Away! Out!”

The silver sound stopped. The human inside turned toward Toaff and she saw him. As soon as Missus saw him, she stood stiff, just where she was.

All Toaff could do was stare at her.

She stared right back at him.

For a long, long time that was actually a short time, they stared at one another. Missus had no fur at all on her face. She was a huge thing, Toaff realized, looking up at her. He was looking right into her eyes, unable to think of anything to say although he did want to say something, even just hello, even if she would never understand him.

“Get it, Sadie! Get it!” Angus yarked, and he jumped up at the entrance. His teeth were long and pointy and his head was big enough to push the thin wall out.

Toaff backed off so fast he almost fell. He caught himself just in time to find his balance and turn to leap back into the oak. He ran along the branch, back to the safety of the trunk. There he huddled, quivering with fear and amazement, trying to remember everything.

He wished he had said hello.

For a long time, Toaff sat quietly, thinking. He looked at the nest-house with its many entrances. Faint sounds of human voices came from inside the nest-house, but that long, silvery sound did not happen again. He began to wonder what, seeing him, Missus had seen to stare at like that, without moving, for such a long time.

To look a human straight in the eye? Toaff had never heard of any squirrel doing that, not ever. He didn’t know that he had seen anything particular in her eyes but he did know that she had been looking right back at him. Maybe humans really did take care of squirrels, and wanted them to be warm and dry and well fed. Missus had looked right at him, as if she was waiting. Waiting for what? What was a squirrel supposed to do, eye to eye with a human?

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